Across - and in Some Cases, into - the Salt Flats at Badwater (Thursday Feb 18 cont'd)

After lunch, we walked over to the Visitor Center to wrestle again with the “free wi-fi”. This time we had some success, as the blog testifies (see below for multiple entries posted all at once). The bandwidth was insufficient to allow Hubby to post the hundreds of photos that he wanted, so that has to wait for a better service. Watch this space.

I also asked in the Visitor Center for some advice on walks we could do. Our options are a bit limited by the fact that our vehicle is a 25 foot long RV. It turns out that Death Valley is really a driving park. We now have a better appreciation of why so many people are towing cars behind their motor homes. There are very few trails and those which exist tend to be of the out-and-back type (rather than a loop), which are reached by driving down dirt tracks. Many of these tracks are labeled for four wheel drive, high clearance vehicles only. They are too rough for bicycles. We’ve noticed numerous motorbikes on the roads; and these do seem the ideal way to get about the park.

Our options have also been limited by the closure of several minor roads due to mud. This might seem strange in a desert, but there has been some rain over the past few weeks resulting in muddy conditions which will, I guess, dry to difficult ruts if cars are allowed on the roads. So the affected roads remain closed. Alas, this puts the kybosh on the walk I had planned for Friday morning, along Titus Canyon. The ranger in the Visitor Center agreed that we hadn’t many choices. We’ve decided that we’ll opt for the easy trails at the Salt Creek Interpretive Center and perhaps the Harmony Borax Works tomorrow. As for today, we decided to spend the cool part of the afternoon at the salt flats in Badwater.

Badwater is a natural spring that oozes out dense salty water. It is the home of a rare tiny snail that lives nowhere else on earth. (We didn't see it.) The information signs explain that the water accumulated underground in the last ice age and that the salt leaches out of the rocks around it. The spring area is protected by a short boardwalk. Visitors are then permitted to walk out onto the salt flats (which cover a five mile area). We walked out as far as we could, which was to the edge of the area that was fairly dry, about half a mile. Little Starlet decided to be naughty and bumptious, and walked out further, sinking into the glutinous salty mud up to her ankles. (That’s one pair of socks destroyed and a pair of sneakers caked in stinky poop-colored mud.)

The salt flats are, well, very flat and dominate the floor of Death Valley. In the sunshine they shimmer with the promise of water – which of course turns out to be completely undrinkable. It must have been a great disappointment to those poor 49ers and pioneers, for whom we are developing a strong sense of sympathy. The salt crystals form a crust on top of the sandy mud, creating little mountainous peaks that echo the mountains ringing the valley. It’s a thing of great beauty on a small scale. The kids took a lot of photos…. We were also able to watch the sun set over Telegraph Peak, which has an elevation of 11,048 feet (in contrast to Badwater’s elevation of 282 feet below sea level, which makes it the lowest point in the USA). Nice.

We finished the day back at Furnace Creek with a slightly strange pasta sauce concoction for dinner - the joys of camping - and a round of our new board game, Snorta. Deep Thought set the fire up for mom and dad’s evening entertainment.

We can’t get over how quiet this campground is. Each evening, our campfire has been one of a small handful. Last night it seemed to be the only one. Deep Thought reckons that this might be because there aren’t many kids around, so the adults are able to go into their motor homes whenever they want. She also thinks that the high percentage of seniors in the campground might be a contributing factor, older people wanting to keep warmer and all that. It is true that we are seeing a lot of elderly campers, and we’ve met some of them doing their email in the shadow of the Visitor Center. Many seem to have fled the cold weather in Oregon and Washington state. We’ve even met a couple from Calgary in Canada. It also seems pretty common for these older folks to be spending months on the road, hopping from campground to campground in the warmer south. Given the size of many of the RVs – Enormous! Huge! Giant! Ridiculous! – it’s easy to believe that life could be sustained in them quite adequately for five or six months. Maybe that’ll be me ‘n’ Hubby one day.

Twelve hours and counting

The RV is at least half packed. I put away all the food, cooking equipment, entertainment, toiletries, medicines, and bedding this afternoon. Hubby packed the camping gear like flashlights, lamps, firewood, chairs etc. Little Starlet got home from school and sorted her clothes out. Deep Thought has a pile of stuff in her room waiting to go in. I reckon it should take us about an hour to get departure-ready in the morning. Of course I haven't packed any clothes for me yet; and Hubby cannot find my walking boots in the disaster that is currently our garage.

On the house reorganization front, Hubby has been putting together clothes racks from IKEA and piling his gear onto them. We are putting them in Deep Thought's room, as the one that is least likely to be disturbed while we are away. She is taking it quite patiently.

The kids are getting excited about the trip, but Hubby and I can hardly believe it's tomorrow. I've just spent half an hour Googling directions to our various campsites. I discover that my last but one leg in the trip is less than ideal - a 320 mile schlep from Calico Ghost Town to Merced, which breaks the rule I created at the end of our last RV adventure, never to go more than 250 miles in one day. Ah well, it is the Central Valley we're talking about. Places worth stopping are pretty limited.

Mind the Gap

We still have a one night gap in our itinerary for February. I've been trying to book a night at the Indian Hill Ranch RV Site but they are completely unresponsive. I've now sent them two emails (one back in November) and left a message on their answer phone, to no avail. I can't decide whether we should give up and book somewhere else, or whether we should wing it and just turn up. The RV campsite bible says that this is more scenic than the close-at-hand alternative, but finding ourselves with nowhere would be a tremendous pain in the wazoo.

Final preparations

Twenty-six days till we depart on our next RV adventure. I still have one night of campsite to book. Then I have to compile our itinerary and general info, get the RV rental place to take Hubby's name for collecting The Beast, and generally start to plan our packing.

Packing will be complicated on this occasion by the fact that our kitchen is being demolished on January 25. We'll be putting the contents of the kitchen into storage this week, and we need to remember to leave the appropriate stuff out for the trip!

New Year Adventures on a Mountain Top

We have just returned from two nights in a rental house in Boulder Creek with our group of lovely friends. There were ten adults and nine children. We arrived after everyone else, so all the bedrooms had been taken; and we moved into the RV parked in the garden. Thus...



Deep Thought was very excited by the idea of sleeping in a 40 ft RV, but Little Starlet was in a "take it or leave it" mood. So she stayed up at the house and slept on the floor of the library with one of her chums, in sleeping bags. Here's another picture showing the RV's main living area, which we really didn't use, but it gives you a good impression of the style choices.


Hubby and I weren't that impressed by the sacrifice of compactness for additional living space. Seemed a lot of flummery being added for no particular reason. Not enough deprivation for our taste. Despite a campaign by Deep Thought to upgrade, I don't think we'll be moving beyond our class C 25ft RV any time soon.

Campsites booked!

Over the weekend I booked all except one of the campsites we need for our February trip. We had planned to start with two nights in San Luis Opispo, but all the campsites in that area were already fully booked, so we are going to Pismo instead. Our aim is to avoid the very boring Central Valley area as much as we can.

Our itinerary looks like this:

Pick up van on Friday February 12.
2 nights at Pismo State Beach (i.e. on the coast) - partial hookups
1 night at Tehachapi Indian Village (on highway 58 by Bakersfield) - partial hookups. A private RV site, the only one we couldn't book online. Still waiting for confirmation of that one...
4 nights at Furnace Creek in Death Valley - no hookups
1 night at Calico Ghost Town near Barstow - full hookups
1 night at McConnell State Recreation Area near Merced (a reservoir) - no hookups
Take van back on Monday February 22.

RV is booked

Yesterday I booked our RV for February - 11 days this time, to take account of the drop off day. Luckily the kids have an extended vacation around Presidents' Day, which is the perfect time for a Death Valley trip. Now I need to turn my mind to the campsites.

We are currently engaged in a remodel, so it's hard to focus....

Making Plans

We've decided to head out again in February, this time to Death Valley. Currently in itinerary discussion with Hubby, as he wants to go to the Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree, etc etc etc, all in 10 days. I'm holding out for a couple of unexciting stops in the central valley, followed by a long stop in Death Valley, and then a couple of unexciting stops back.

The other National Parks round there, like Kings Canyon, will be too snowy and cold for a visit at that time. (Check out Kay and Paul's blog from their winter trip to that area if you don't believe us - even the intrepid Bridges ended up in a motel.)

Unfortunately, the central valley really is very unexciting indeed. I'm struggling to find anything that sounds appealing. Maybe we'll just do one overnight to break the monotonous schlep down I-5. After all, we did learn in our first trip that going more than 175 miles in one hop is a mistake.

Down the Tube

We drove from Crater Lake to Lassen Volcanic National Park on Saturday.

At Old Station, where we needed to turn from 89 onto highway 44, we saw a sign for the Subway Cave. (This had also been mentioned to us by the nice lady at the drive through coffee shop in Weed, just moments away from the Pizza Factory, Ray’s Food Place, and the Shell garage: a very handy stop.) The Subway Cave is actually a lava tube that you can walk through, about 1500 feet long. You need your flashlight and jacket but no hard hat, as the roof is high. It was a welcome diversion for half an hour. We took spooky photos of each other, and admired the different lava features helpfully pointed out by the National Park Service. Another first for the Tin Can Crew.

I Didn't Know the Romans Reached Northern California

Experience is showing that hops of between 150 and 175 miles are ideal. Unfortunately, our round trip has included three hops of 250+ miles. Well, you live and learn. We would have benefited from an overnight between Humboldt and Ashland. The leg we did on Saturday wasn’t quite so bad though. We came out of Crater Lake on highway 62, then transferred to highway 97 which proved to be very straight – I mean very, very straight – through open landscape with background mountains. No stopping points either, so the journey was fast. After a short stretch of I-5, we moved on to highway 89, which also proved to be quite straight, and a generally easy drive. To our annoyance, we got stuck behind a big truck (and it’s mostly a single lane road), but we survived.

As the road passed through Hat Creek Valley, it became obvious that there had been some big wildfires in the area. We saw many acres of blackened forest (and there were still some intrepid campers dotted among them, though they had clearly arrived later than the fire….).

A Typical Morning on a Driving Day

Little Starlet wakes up at 6:00am, reads her book, then wakes us up at 7:30am (though we’re usually already awake). She pulls back our privacy curtain with a big happy “Good Morning!” Deep Thought drags herself out of bed twenty minutes later: She stays behind her privacy curtain as long as she can.

Hubby collects our mugs, kettle and water from outside. Then he breaks Little Starlet’s bed, reconstructing the dinette. We collect our coins, towels and toiletries, and walk round to the campsite showers. Then we eat a breakfast of cereal. (It’s usually cooked food on a stay-put day.)

Everyone gets dressed, then Deep Thought and Little Starlet wash and dry the dishes while I put them away. We tidy everything that is left hanging around, e.g. clothes, shoes, books. We tidy up as we go along: It is very important to be super tidy in such a small space. As we are in bear country we are careful to make sure all food and anything that looks like it might be food (e.g. a mug) is put out of sight. Apparently the bears can try to get into your vehicle if they think they can see food. Hubby tidies up outside, again putting away anything that is or that looks like food. Visits to the campsite toilets, brushing teeth and hair, medicines, and a final sweep of the dusty floor (with the handy brush that collapses down into a very short length of handle, as provided by the RV company).

If we are moving on, Hubby checks the outside of the RV: storage cupboard locked, door step away, leveling blocks away, any hookup unplugged and the cord away. I check the interior: All cupboards securely closed, air vents closed, windows closed, curtains pinned back, nothing loose on any surfaces or on the floor to slide around, all appliances turned off, water pump off, toilet empty and closed, lights off.

And we’re away.

Nerdy Interlude

No camp fire for us here, but we do have electricity and water. For the nerds among our readers, a full tank of water has lasted us about three days, and a full tank of gas takes us about 300 miles. As for the infamous “black water” issue, this ship has a strict rule: All “number twos” have to happen in the campground loos and not on board. So our black water tank is only 1/3 full so far, and not close to needing to be emptied. In fact the RV's instruction manual says the tank should only be emptied when it is full so that "solids" (lots of delicate euphemisms appear in RV-speak) do not get "left behind" when the "liquids" are drained. We may need to up the wee productivity to get there. Our "grey water" tank is almost full, so we shall need to dump that before setting off from Ashland.

But Hubby is looking on the bright side. He might only need one pair of gloves after all.

[photo by Deep Thought.]

Feeling Petrified?

We're heading to Calistoga on Saturday. Our first dilemma is whether to visit the Petrified Forest or the Old Faithful Geyser, or whether to give them both a miss and go for a walk instead. The problem is that we are likely to arrive in the Calistoga area several hours before we can check into the Bothe-Napa State Park. So we need to do something, and lunch at Denny's is not high on Hubby's list of wannados.

We have friends who've seen Old Faithful and describe it as "interesting but not life changing." The online reviews of both are dire, mostly along the lines of "They charged me $10 to see a pile of logs" and "They charged me $10 to pat a goat and see a not-very-impressive squirt of water after a 20 minute wait." So, as you can see, we are torn. That's California for you, so many wonderful choices.

Dumping Heaven

Our neighbors are having their house remodeled. Yesterday, Little Starlet and I paused to watch the man empty the workers' mobile toilet ("porta-potty"). With eyebrows in her hairline and a flamboyant toss of the head, she declared that she NEVER wanted to be that man.

So it was with mobile poo on my mind that I discovered a wonderful website designed to put all your sanitary fears to rest, www.RVdumps.com, a noble website created by something called Roundabout Publications. Yes, listed in one easy directory state by state, all the dump stations available for your "black water" tanks, complete with reviews. "This one might be a bit tight for large units" says one reviewer. "Nice people, but it's all self service," sighs another. "This one provides a clean hose and everything," enthuses a third. Gosh, I can hardly wait.

Fees for getting rid of your sewage seem to range from about $2 to $20 per dump, with most commentators feeling anything over $10 is extortion (especially if it doesn't include a free refill of the water tank or another RV specific service).

And that reminds me, must remember to put "rubber gloves" on the final shopping list for tomorrow. Little Starlet might not be planning to be the Porta-Potty Man, but I know a man who is.

And When They Were Up, They Were Up...Except When They Couldn't Make It

Hubby has delegated all activity and route planning to me, so I have spent several evenings glued to the computer trying to work out ways to get back to nature, etc, without any of us keeling over. Analysis of the trail maps for the State and National Parks where I've selected our camp sites reveals an alarmingly large number of trails marked "strenuous" and very few marked "easy for people who haven't done any exercise in the past month."

I presume Deep Thought will be fine, with a week of soccer camp in her back pocket, following hard on the heels of her two weeks at away camp where she was board diving, rock climbing and so on. Hubby seems to maintain some residual level of fitness even when he is a total couch potato - and he has managed a few cycling outings recently, so he's not so bad. I'm a bit concerned about Little Starlet - whose weekly gymnastics class makes her very red and sweaty - and perhaps a little more concerned still about me, a person who needs to take a rest on the sofa after carrying in the shopping bags.

Hubby reminds me of an incident in our younger days, when we were walking in the Peak District and, in an attempt on a steep slope, I sat on the floor and refused to go any further until he gave in and allowed us to retreat downhill to the nearest pub. He seems to think that now I am older and wiser, and a mother, I might be shamed by such behavior (at least in front of the smaller set). How little we get to know our partners, even in two decades. Besides which, nothing about my lack of enthusiasm for exercise would surprise our two.

That said, I am eager to get out into the redwood forests and enjoy some nature, maybe even a bit of solitude. That might be asking a bit much for a family of four travelling by RV, but who said wishful thinking isn't allowed?

Shop, Shop, Shop!

Today we went shopping for food. We filled up two trolleys and had to have help back to the car. And we still didn't buy everything!

(This is a photo of part of our shopping.)

I Was Too Far Out All My Life, and Not Camping but Shopping.

I think it's fair to say that we are now in a total frenzy of planning. With the help of numerous books and websites, and with many contributions from Deep Thought, we have at least three lists under construction - gear, food, and clothes, with a lot of focus on gear.

As always, travel, and especially camping, seems to involve a great deal of shopping. I've made trips to REI for water purification tablets and emergency ponchos (in case we get caught up in an earthquake), to Target for plastic bowls and a very important new box of My Littlest Pet Shop gear (Little Starlet's choice), and to Books Inc for many new books. Several new travel games have been bought, including a Klutz book which promises to entertain us with 15 of the best board games ever created. I am about to download a couple of audio books from iTunes (if only I can find some acceptable voices reading the books that the kids want to hear - too many of them make me want to run screaming from the room, and that's before I'm trapped in a tin can with them for 6 hours). I've even purchased a new pair of sneakers today, with special sporty socks. Deep Thought examined them closely and commented "You like these?" - which I took to be approval.

Time To Plan! :-O

We've decided it's time to start thinking about our trip - maybe a little late but oh well. Dr. Mom has bought a kettle and is looking very pleased about it. She's kind of pretending that she did all the planning by buying a kettle. Anyway, wish us luck with the planning!

Oh. I forgot to say Dr. Mom is feeling a lot better.

Trying to Engage the Troops

All the books say that you should make sure to involve your kids in the planning process for any lengthy trips such as the one we are about to do. What the books don't say is how to get them to show any interest at all. I've tried asking what they think will be interesting or surprising, what they're looking forward to or not sure about. I've tried spreading the maps across the living room, and leaving heaps of guide books on the sofa. I've tried saying things like "Gosh, there looks like there might be a good beach here, or do you think we should try to get to there for the lunch stop?" But all to no avail. Little Starlet gives a theatrical sigh and says she really doesn't mind what we do. Deep Thought takes a quick look before going back to her book or whatever is clearly more interesting than interacting with her mother.

Perhaps they'll want to engage more when we are actually on the road, or is that just wishful thinking?

Worryingly, the thing that has fascinated them most so far is choosing a portable DVD player and five brand new DVDs to take on the journey. Not quite what I had in mind.

Size is Everything

Hubby and I have been checking back on the size of the RV we've hired. It's the smallest available - we didn't want to be too ambitious on this, our first trip - but the dimensions seem enormous now we really consider them. 25ft long, 8ft wide, 11ft high.

Even so, a quick look at the floorplan so helpfully provided by Camping World makes us wonder where we're going to stash all the stuff that is already on our barely-started packing list. And Little Starlet hasn't even begun to put her extensive Polly Pocket family into a suitcase.

The floorplan consists of a driving cab area (lucky, that), with a "cabover bed"; a lounge chair which appears to be bolted to the floor, probably a good idea as we are combining the accident-prone Little Starlet with a twisty road; a "dinette" that converts into a single bed, reminiscent of all those happy holidays spent in fixed caravan sites in Rhyl; a "double bed" designed for two short, svelt sleepers; a shower and sink; the delicately named "toilette"; and a cooking area of small oven, microwave, stovetop, and sink. There is also something enigmatically labelled "Refer", which presumably is some hitherto unknown abbreviation, or perhaps a special technical word known only to RVers, refer-ing to the refrigerator.

Let's hope so, as we plan to take as much food with us as we can load into the van. Though our route follows major highways through delightfully named towns like Eureka, we're not sure that the Formager D'Affinois or Greek olive oil will be so easy to find as it is in the Bay Area. Mind you, the food shopping I've done so far consists of jumbo boxes of Cheezits and multi-packs of tomato sauce, so who am I trying to kid?

Hubby says with a reassuring chuckle that I would have no trouble driving this monster. Well, that's not my plan. Someone needs to commune with the maps, and that seems like my sort of gig.